Most conservative columnists at the Washington Post have one foot in the fever swamp of right-wing media culture and one foot in the reality of Washington DC and how the town and the federal government actually work. In other words, they are in on their own game. They use the right-wing media to promote their own celebrity, to maintain their influence, and to sell the occasional book, but they know that world is bullshit. I’d put even hyperpartisans like Charles Krauthammer and Michael Gerson in this group. But J-Rube is apparently in another category. She actually believes the crap she reads at World Net Daily and Fox New Nation. Take this paragraph she wrote in today’s column about Clinton’s speech:
At times his defense of President Obama strained credulity: Obama, he said, is bipartisan because he hired Republicans in government jobs and he is willing to work “cooperatively.” The Obama record is so obviously at odds with that sentiment (unilateral action on immigration and on welfare and the refusal to make a deal entitlements (sic) or address the fiscal cliff) that Clinton’s argument seemed unserious.
I should probably ask Professor Bill Clinton to deconstruct that nonsense since he is quite good at that type of thing. President Obama didn’t merely hire a couple of Republicans for “government jobs.” He kept President Bush’s Defense Secretary and hired Republicans to run the army and the Department of Transportation. Then we get three examples (immigration, welfare, and the fiscal cliff) where the president is accused of acting unilaterally.
President Bush tried and failed to convince the Republican Party to take up immigration reform. His effort was spearheaded by Teddy Kennedy and John McCain. That’s a bipartisan effort, but it had no success. Barack Obama was less ambitious. He merely wanted to pass the DREAM Act so kids who grew up in the United States and stayed out of trouble and are pursuing an education will not have to live in constant fear of deportation. He asked for Republican support for this, but he received none.
Then there is the welfare issue. On May 19, 2005, Mitt Romney co-signed a letter with 27 other Republican governors requesting that then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist pass a bill to grant them waiver authority to meet the welfare work requirements. Specifically, the letter said, ““Increased waiver authority, allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit and the ability to coordinate state programs are all important aspects of moving recipients from welfare to work.”
So, here is an example of all the Republican governors (including Romney) asking the Republican-led senate to do something that they now deem “weakening the welfare work requirement.” I’ll let Bill Clinton tell you what really happened with Obama’s welfare edict.
“Here’s what happened. When some Republican governors asked to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama Administration said they would only do it if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20%. You hear that? More work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform’s work requirement is just not true. But they keep running ads on it. As their campaign pollster said “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” Now that is true. I couldn’t have said it better myself – I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.”
And, here’s the thing. Whether or not you think the waiver authority will weaken the work provision of welfare, it is a policy change the Republicans had been seeking for seven years. The breathtaking hypocrisy of their criticism is only exceeded by J-Rube’s assertion that giving the GOP their wish is an example of unilateralist partisanship. How does she not get struck by lightning when she writes that?
Finally, there’s the fiscal cliff and entitlements, and Obama’s alleged refusal to make a deal. All along, the president has had one bottom line demand. He wants at least some new revenues to help us start to balance the budget and pay down the debt. The Republicans have refused at every step along the way. The Bowles-Simpson committee never issued a report because Paul Ryan led the charge against any new revenues. We almost defaulted on our debt because Eric Cantor rebelled against Speaker Boehner over new revenues. The whole fiscal cliff was created because the Republicans would not move an inch on new revenues.
The nature of a bipartisan agreement is that both sides give up something they value in order to get something they value. A bipartisan agreement is not created by one side dropping all their demands. Two years ago, the president extended the Bush tax cuts for two years in exchange for an extension of unemployment insurance, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the ratification of the New START Treaty. That’s a bipartisan agreement. Capitulating to the House Republicans’ budget in return for nothing is not a bipartisan agreement. When a party controls the White House and the Senate, they do not adopt the policies of the House. They negotiate with the House. The House Republicans refuse to compromise on anything. That’s why we’re facing the fiscal cliff and have no agreement on entitlement reform.
The rest of J-Rube’s column is, if anything, even more disingenuous. It’s so counter-factual that its publication ought to be a scandal among the Washington Post staff.
